PANAMA CITY — Jimmy “Trey” Stanford III has been rehired by the Sheriff’s Office as a detention specialist two years after he resigned amid an investigation into a high-speed police chase in which he was the only suspect.

“The sheriff decided to give him a second chance,” Maj. Tommy Ford said, adding that Stanford did not receive special treatment.

Stanford had a documented history of alcohol use and behaving recklessly even before he resigned from the Sheriff’s Office in 2011. He was suspended without pay in 2005 after Panama City Beach Police, investigating a report of shots fired, chased him from Rock’It Lanes and found him hiding in bushes. A supervisor admonished him for bringing “discredit to yourself, but also to this agency,” according to law enforcement records.

Reports indicate Stanford, who was not on duty at the time of the Rock’It Lanes incident, was extremely intoxicated but unarmed, and no charges against him were filed.

Stanford was suspended in 2009 after he was involved in a crash in his Sheriff’s Office patrol car. Before the crash, he was talking on a cellphone while driving 99 miles per hour to respond to a non-emergency call.

Trey Stanford, whose father, Capt. Jimmy Stanford, is BCSO’s top criminal investigator, resigned after about a decade with the BCSO on Oct. 18, 2011. Only hours earlier, his personal car was found wrecked but abandoned a short distance from where a Panama City Police officer stopped chasing a car matching Trey Stanford’s after speeds reached 100 miles per hour.

His BCSO badge and a loaded pistol were found at the scene, but witnesses to the crash said the driver ran off before police arrived. Police found frozen food and a receipt indicating Trey Stanford had just been shopping at Wal-Mart. They found wrappers for ice cream bars, still cold, behind the business near the crash.

The BCSO did not conduct an investigation, but deputies responded to the scene of the crash and collected evidence.

Panama City Police conducted a brief investigation into the chase but did not have enough evidence to make felony charges against Trey Stanford. Lynn Haven Police charged him with a misdemeanor count of leaving the scene of a crash with property damage. The State Attorney’s Office asked the governor to assign a special prosecutor to Trey Stanford’s case because of the relationship between the two offices.

Trey Stanford eventually pleaded no contest to a count of failure to leave information, and Judge Joe Grammer withheld adjudication, which allowed him to keep his law enforcement certification.

“In our system of justice he has not been convicted of the things he was charged with,” Ford said.

Ford pointed out that Trey Stanford has not had any issues since he was arrested for DUI about two months after he resigned. That charge was dismissed.

His first day at the jail was last Friday, Ford said. He’s being paid about $30,000 a year, which is less than he made as a deputy but more than a detention supervisor just starting out.

It’s an entry-level position with “diminished responsibilities” compared to those of a patrol deputy, Ford said, adding that every position with the BCSO demands responsibility. Ford assumed Trey Stanford was not the only applicant for the job, but he said he was not sure.

“We do have a turnover at the jail, and these positions come open pretty frequently,” he said. “We do have a continuous pool of applicants.”

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